Monday, November 26, 2007

Guy Waters is a Liberal

Posted by
Josh Walker

Hot off the press, today in our Greek exegesis class Dr. Guy Waters identified himself as a 'liberal.'

I was shocked! After all, Waters is often called a TR. You know a 'TR', it stands for 'Totally Reformed' or 'Truly Reformed.' This is used by some as a chide remark for people who are far to the right theological of where they are and usually carries with it the idea that the person holds strongly to a certain confession of faith. In other words, this term is used in a negative way to put down those among the Reformed faith who take their tradition seriously and have the nerve to actually hold to the doctrinal standards of their faith. (At this point I am being sarcastic. I needed to say that because many today in the Reformed church actually think it is a bad thing to hold strictly to, say, the Westminster standards. This is far beyond my understanding. I am a Presbyterian precisely because it holds to the Westminster Standards.)

Back to the hot news, after Waters referred to himself as a 'liberal,' he followed up his comments with, "liberal in the 18th century sense of that word." At this point I wiped the sweat off my brow. I was relieved to find out that Water's was still my favorite TR, after all liberal in this sense means broad or wide.

Also, in this vain, Dr. Waters has a great new book out, By Faith Alone: Answering the Challenges to the Doctrine of Justifications. Guy Waters and Gary Johnson co-edited this book. I hope to have a review of this book up in the future. But this book, among others, is one of the reasons that Dr. Waters is labeled a 'TR'. I would like to be the first and hopefully not the last to thank Dr. Waters for being a 'TR.' The Reformed faith needs more men like this. Men who are willing to stand up to those who are distorting the historic Reformed faith. So, Dr. Waters, THANK YOU!